Epistemic Harvest

The Electronic Database As Discourse And Means Of Data Production

Abstract

The following discussion of computational capital takes the electronic database, an infrastructure for storing information, as vantage point. Following a brief look into how database systems serve information desires, the notion of ‘database as discourse’ by Mark Poster is explored and further developed. Database as discourse establishes a machinic agency, directed towards the individual in a specific mode of hailing. This mode of hailing in turn leads to a scatteredform of subjectivity, that is identified with Manuela Ott and Gerald Raunig as dividual. How does dividualization emerge from database infrastructure? What is the specificquality of data, that is produced by and being harvested from in/dividuals into databases, and what are the consequences of such ashifted view?